


Snapshots

by Fandom_Trash224



Series: The Killjoys [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Guns, Origin Story, Original Character(s), Pickpockets, hi this is my girl Raylin's backstory and i love her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 09:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16060427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandom_Trash224/pseuds/Fandom_Trash224
Summary: Raylin Jonas will do whatever it takes to help her family.





	Snapshots

“I’m sorry, but  _ how much  _ do we owe?” A woman’s voice asked incredulously, waking Raylin up from her dreamless sleep. It took only a moment for her to get her bearings: she was on the couch, and she realized she had probably fallen asleep waiting for Jayla to get home. 

It was her sister on the phone, angrily shouting at the poor customer service person on the other side of the line. 

The question her sister asked over the phone made her uneasy. Who was she talking to? The electric company? The phone company? The landlord? They couldn’t find anyplace cheaper this close to Jay’s work, if they got evicted because they didn’t have enough money for rent--

“Listen, I  _ never  _ ordered that. You’ve got the wrong number, or  _ something _ \-- I am  _ not _ \-- Do I  _ sound  _ like an ‘Ethyl Merriam’? No, that’s what I thought! Get your facts straight before you start telling people-- Hello? Hello? Ugh,” Jayla slammed down the phone into the receiver before turning around and meeting Ray’s open eyes.

“Hey Jay.” Raylin said, her voice filled with drowsiness. 

“... Hey Ray,” Jay replied, her voice significantly quieter than before “Did I wake you up?”

Ray nodded, but shrugged as she sat up, pulling out a wad of cash from her hoodie’s pocket to hand it over to her older sister. Jay’s eyebrows shot up, but she took the money without much question. They had both learned a long time ago it was easier to not ask where the other came across extra money. It would always lead to an argument and noise complaints, and they were already on thin enough ice with the lady next door in 3A.

“Thanks sis,” she said, walking behind the couch to place the cash in the jar labeled “bills”. Ray huffed slightly, causing Jay to roll her eyes and throw a couple bucks into the “leisure” jar. Ray flashed her a smile before lying back down onto her couch-bed, snuggling up into her hoodie and burying her face into her pillow.

There were several creaking noises indicating her sister moving around to where Ray was, before she felt a heavy weight press against her on the couch. Jay must've been sitting down. This theory was confirmed when Ray felt her sister begin petting her hair softly, humming some nonsense tune. 

“I know things seem bad, Ray,” Jayla said softly “But I promise, everything’s gonna get better. Mom and dad are still watching over us, and even though they can’t do much to help, they're cheering us on… You know that, don't you?”

Ray slowly turned her head to face her sister, one of her eyebrows arched questioningly. 

“Know what?” Ray asked, and she suddenly noticed the unshed tears in her older sister’s tired eyes. 

“That mom and dad loved us. Loved you,” Jay choked back a sob, brushing a stray strand of hair from Ray’s face to behind her ear “That I love you.”

Ray couldn't say anything. She didn't know how to react. Seeing her strong sister like that, breaking down about how bad things were going, worried about whether or not Ray knew she was loved… It broke Ray’s heart. 

It must’ve been a long day.

“Of course,” Ray said softly, pulling her older sister into a hug “I know, Jay. I know.” 

(She knew, and that’s why she couldn’t stop.)

(~)

As Ray was slammed against the wall by the man she had attempted to steal from, dozens of thoughts were going through her head: 

_ What’s going to happen to Jay if I die? How did he know I had stolen from him? Was he going to just beat me up, or was he going to kill me? Who did I just piss off? How much money did I even take? _

However, she knew that very few of these questions were going to be answered by just standing there, save for maybe whether or not she was going to die and what would happen to Jay if she did, so she did something any girl would’ve done if pinned against the wall of an alleyway by a stranger: She kicked him where it hurts, and ran.

It was only when she was hidden out of sight and the shouting voice of the man faded into the distance that she was able to breathe again, her entire body shaking with fear as she slowly pulled the wad of cash from her hoodie’s pocket. Her breath caught.

She stared at the cash in disbelief. It was at  _ least  _ three-hundred dollars, maybe give or take a few dollars. This would be enough to buy their groceries for the month, maybe even get  _ extra _ food that their seventy-five dollar budget never allowed for. Maybe they could even see a movie, or put it in their savings account, or--

Or… they would put one hundred and twenty of the two hundred into savings, put five towards their “fun fund”, and use the other seventy five for their grocery budget, because that was the smart thing to do for them until Ray could finally go to college and get a job. 

She only had junior and senior year left. Two years, and Jay could quit her job at the diner, they could get out of the slums, maybe even move uptown, and finally,  _ finally _ , Ray could stop having to stare fear in the face every other night just to help make ends meet. 

But until then, she would. She had to.

(~)

Looking back, they day had been a blur for her. Colleges had come by to talk to the students  (again), her counselor pushed her to dual-enroll (again), she declined (again). 

She tried to pick a man’s pocket on the way home. 

He had a gun, and she ran. She heard sirens. A cop? Must’ve been (it was all really such a blur).

Words they shouted fell on deaf ears. She ran, and ran, and ran until she could hide and wait it out. When they left, she took a deep breath, stood, and a green flash streaked down from above, before slowly placing itself upon her ring finger.

_ “Raylin Jonas of Earth. You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps.” _

(~)

Oa was…  _ weird _ . In a beautiful way, though. It was alien, with strange structures twisting and turning different ways that looked like giants had molded them out of clay, or hot metal (Ray sometimes wanted to ask if they  _ had _ , but she got enough of a hard time being “another newbie from Earth” that she didn’t want to make it worse).

She’d get dirty looks, sometimes. Mutterings of “criminal” and “just a child”, but she shrugged it off. She’d heard much worse from people she cared much more about. 

(~)

She was relieved when they assigned her to the sector that included Earth. Her sister would’ve been worried sick if she had just… Disappeared. 

_ (What would happen to Jay if I died?) _

Apparently, she had only been gone for a day and a half, so Jay hadn’t been too worried at that point. Ray was notorious for going out to libraries, coffee shops, and other various places to study or hang out before crashing at a friend’s house.She didn’t even have to explain.

Nor did she have to explain how she suddenly got a job with the Gotham Gazette, or why they had received a gift from Wayne Enterprises in the form of an almost obscene amount of money. Jay just… never asked. Either she was too busy, or too used to not questioning things, or maybe, just  _ maybe  _ she knew something else. Maybe she knew Ray was doing good, that Ray had a much more important job than being a reporter for a paper.

Even so, she never told Jay anything. There was too much danger in that, at least for now. 

She  _ did _ have to come up with excuses for missions that took her away for long periods of time. 

“University scouting”, “Job for the paper”, and even just “Going out for a few days to get some fresh air, I’ll be back” worked. It was easy. 

And it was about that time that the Justice League finally brought her into their fold as yet another Green Lantern to fight alongside them.

After all: it was, and always has been, her duty to help others, right?

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed! i'm slowly working on my various Killjoys origins. we have three more ocs, and two reworked canon characters to go, so once those are done, maybe i can finally get my actually Multi-Chapter thing i want to write with them.
> 
> dc tumblr: gothamhell.tumblr.com


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